SPANStor: File storage and retrieval made easy

Network Storage Solutions, Inc. (NSS) traces its roots back to 1990 when Symmetrical Technologies, Inc. created SPANStor; a network attached optical storage operating system. In 1996, NSS was formed to evolve SPANStor into a fully functioning network attached storage OS. The next generation of SPANStor was released in May 1998. Since then, SPANStor has continued to grow in functionality and performance culminating in the enterprise release of SPANStor Version 5 in 2002.

NSS develops and markets modular NAS appliances that are designed specifically for high performance data access, ease of management, and reliability. They are comprised of industry standard, best of breed hardware integrated with a highly optimized, specialized, and feature-rich journaled file system. In 2001, NSS announced a relationship with Hitachi Data Systems that brought together Hitachi ’s world-class storage area network (SAN) technology with the NSS NAS products to produce the industry’s first truly integrated NAS-SAN solution. This offering has been well received by large customers around the globe.

The emergence of NAS appliances for the storage marketplace is analogous to the development of network routers. Originally, customers used a DEC VAX, Sun workstation, or IBM System/38 running routing software with a network interface card installed to provide network routing services. Companies such as Cisco recognized that a dedicated routing appliance would provide superior value and introduced products specifically designed to provide routing services.

Performance for routers went through the roof, system administration went way down, and reliability increased. NAS solutions provide similar benefits for data storage access in the information infrastructure. Explosive data growth has created problems of accessibility, manageability, and reliability for the Information Technology manager. NAS, integrated with SANs, eliminates these problems.

Storage Architectures
Traditionally, host servers attached to disk resources using direct connected SCSI connections. As server data loads, volumes, and server processing capacity increased, data I/O became a limiting factor in system performance. Additionally, as the complexity of these systems increased, management costs and total cost of ownership climbed dramatically.

As direct connected systems grow in terms of capacity and the number of files stored, problems with performance and reliability grow significantly. Systems based on the SPANStor NAS OS solve these problems by accelerating I/O and reducing data response times, in a simple data appliance model that is simple to install and manage. Direct attached storage (DAS) solutions are being replaced at an extremely fast rate by networked storage products that offer better management capabilities, less administrative hassles, and more scalability. In fact, the analyst group IDC estimates that more will be spent on SANs and NAS combined than DAS each year beginning in 2003.

The problems of increasing capacity, heterogeneous system access, manageability, and performance led to the development of the Storage Networking industry. The Storage Networking industry includes both the SAN and NAS product manufacturers. SAN technology today is being driven by the various Fibre Channel manufacturers and includes both Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop and Fabric Switched technologies. Based on its relationship with Hitachi Data Systems, NSS has delivered integrated NAS-SAN storage products to customers that deliver the best features from both technologies.

From a customer perspective, it is no longer an either or proposition. Companies and government agencies need the value NAS and SAN bring them. It is critical that users consider the value of both as they develop their storage strategies. For example, many customers are using NAS devices to enable their SANs. This allows clear delineation of the storage space, for example, for Internet service providers or other entities that need to provide various classes of service.

The main challenge of SANs is complexity of management and build. But SAN solutions may also face bandwidth or response time challenges. Efficient data delivery to the client is much more important to most common business applications than streaming data rates (bandwidth). Most servers are I/O bottlenecked, and adding additional high-speed storage controllers to an already bottlenecked server may not improve performance. By shifting I/O loads off servers to the NAS appliance, data access improves, and bottlenecks are broken. The Fibre Channel storage industry is responding to two major customer desires: the need for additional performance (bandwidth), and the ability to physically locate storage at a distance from the host server.

NSS Thunderbolt systems provide an efficient, reliable, solution to both these requirements today; using standards based hardware and software. SPANStor enabled network attached storage products eliminate the server as a data bottleneck, delivering fast, and reliable and scalable data access. Thunderbolt solutions are highly scalable data servers that install easily and integrate into existing information infrastructures.

The NSS Thunderbolt storage products, based on the NASengine and µStor-ll line of NAS appliances, provide high performance in an easily managed thin appliance. Supporting NFS, SMB/CIFS, and HTTP protocols, the devices can be accessed by both UNIX and Windows clients concurrently. Each can manage over 5 Terabytes of data supporting multiple Ultra Wide SCSI connections at speeds of 160 megabytes per second per SCSI interface. Fibre channel interfaces are also available.

As the number of Internet users and publishers grows, the demand for data-rich multimedia information is growing exponentially. Rapid data access is key to the Internet’s Information Infrastructure. Traditional measures of performance like storage bandwidth or throughput are rendered obsolete in an age where network clients require rapid data response times. Increased demand stresses and overloads the traditional servers that are directly connected to storage resources, resulting in sluggish and erratic performance. Network attaching storage with SPANStor provides the fast data response times demanded by the changing Internet Information Infrastructure. Data response times have become the key storage metric in the Internet Information Infrastructure, and Thunderbolt products deliver high performance with exceptional response times.

Ease Of Use
Set up your network quickly and efficiently with the Network Setup Wizard, and define access privileges for easy administration. With browser-based administration, 1 TB to 32TB of storage can be managed by SPANStor.

File Sharing and Manageability
SPANStor integrates seamlessly Windows and UNIX systems. Like the Network Setup Wizard, both Windows shares (CIFS) and Unix Exports (NFS) are wizard based, so you can share folders and files quickly. Set File Quotas for Users, Members, and Groups for storage manageability.

SPANStor works with DNS, NIS , WINS, FTP, HTTP, and DHCP for flexible network operations.

Stay Informed
SPANStor provides system status on demand. Real Time Performance of your network can be monitored from a GUI on any computer connected to your network. Monitor disk usage, quotas, and data transfer rates as well.

Have an e-mail or Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) notification sent to recipients of you choice, or both.

SPANStor uses UNICODE to support many different languages, making it easier than ever to understand menus and available options.

Connections: the key to on and off-network traffic
Support for Multiple 10/100/1000 Ethernet NICs, for flexible network connectivity. Looking for fiber support? Optional 1 Gb or 2Gb fiber channel cards are available. Full-fabric logon for Fiber Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL), and native fiber channel support are built into the SPANStor kernel.

What about backing up your data? SPANStor uses Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP), an open standard protocol for enterprise-wide backup of network-attached storage. NDMP offers LAN-free backup, and supports SAN or local-attached tape libraries.

SPANStor has been tested with popular backup programs such as Legato Networker 6.1, Veritas Netbackup 4.5, Bakbone Netvault 6.5, and SyncSort, in order to work with your existing network backup programs. 

Advanced Functions
Without point-in-time copy ability, file replication, or failover options, any NAS/SAN system would be little more than a simple hard drive. With SPANStor, you have options available to you for true NAS/SAN capabilities:

SPANStor is capable of failover operation, on systems so equipped, for the very best in High Availability and data protection.

SPANSnap (Point In Time Snapshots) offer the ability to restore lost, damaged, or accidentally deleted data back to a point in time you set, for panic-free data recovery.

SPANSync works with SPANSnap to detect and record changes to the data for fast, efficient replication. SPANSync, a revolutionary solution in file-based replication, permits many sources to copy data to a single target, and a multi-target distribution of the data from a single source.  

Return On Investment
SPANStor keeps your data available when you need it, where you need it. Administer it anywhere on your network. And know your data is safely protected, yet shareable with everyone in your department, workgroup, or enterprise.  Add additional options for failover, file copying, or replication for additional functionality.  

Whether your needs are for a small department, or you are looking for an enterprise-level solution, your files is the single most important thing your company can posses Can you really put a price tag on your data?  Try a SPANStor-based system for your network.

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